Devi Yesodharan

Entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

CSO, Trendlyne Technologies. Previously: Policy and communications, UIDAI (Aadhaar), Writing and research for Imagining India, by Nandan Nilekani. Hewlett Packard, FourthLion Technologies.

The value of incumbency - in ideas, economies, and networks - is fading. The increase in collaborative approaches for platforms and marketplaces decreases the entry cost for even small organizations, and allows them to compete at a level and scale not possible before. This enables new ideas to rise quickly - we are seeing this in our politics and economics at a scale not possible before. And there is much to be gained as power and trust is distributed within communities and players, as opposed to centralization. We should not mistake this shift however, as a necessarily moral force that only benefits good ideas and approaches. The possibilities of both chaos and innovation have soared. And so far only certain demographics - ones with strong education, geo and tech advantages - have the capacity to take advantage of these trends, particularly in the short term.